


Future Dreaming

by VespidaeQueen



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Future Self, Gen, Past Self
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 10:08:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2021043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VespidaeQueen/pseuds/VespidaeQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a moment, he dreams of his future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2012 for the prompt "Awakenings!Anders and DA2!Anders have a conversation, somehow." Originally posted to tumblr.

The night after they meet Justice and awake from the Fade, Anders dreams.

It is not strange for him to dream; he touches the Fade as he sleep, and his dreams are always the strange, magic tinged images that seem almost half real, even when they are nonsensical and strange. But this dream has a sense of reality to it that the others lack. It is almost like he has stepped fully into the Fade, though he is certain he hasn’t.

He can feel no demons lurking here.

There is a man sitting on a stone - no, a box - in the middle of a street. Everything centers upon him, a figure dressed in black, and he sits there, his image crisp and clean while all the other details blur around him.

The man is haggard and worn, circles beneath his eyes and lines at the corners. His nose it too long, like Anders’ own, and his hair falls out of a rather pitiful ponytail.

"Oh," Anders says to the man that looks very much like himself. "Isn’t this  _dreary_. Really, if I have to be dreaming about myself, there should be less clothing involved. Far more fun that way. Though, I must say, your taste in pauldrons is  _excellent_.”

The man on the box looks up at him, and there is something that is nearly a smile upon his lips. “I remember you,” he says, and he sounds so  _tired_.

"Have we met before? You  _do_  look remarkably familiar. Was it the dream with the Warden Commander and the cheese wheel? That was a very good dream.”

The man shakes his head just a bit. “I remember  _you_ ,” he says again. “I miss being you.”

"Oh, I would miss being me, too." Anders has decided that this is a very odd dream, but that he’s simply going to go along with it. He feels no demons here. "Really, being me is simply amazing."

"Being you was…different," the man says, and there is something to distinctly unnerving about him. "Easier. It’s easy to hide everything behind humor."

"I’m not  _hiding_ ,” Anders tells him.

"You are." The man stands up, and steps before Anders. "One day, you won’t."

Anders crosses his arms before him, puts on his best cocky smile. “Oh, really? I suppose you aren’t hiding.”

"No," he says. "I’m not. Not anymore. I couldn’t change the world while hiding."

Anders blinks. “ _Right_. Change the world. That’s a little bit too big for me. I’ll start things small. Change my robes, maybe. Something with more feathers.”

The man who looks like Anders smiles very sadly. “Remember,” he says, ignoring all the things that Anders says to hide everything else, “there can be no peace.”

And then Anders wakes.


End file.
